Can Maren Morris Make the Taylor Swift Crossover to Pop?

In 2014, Taylor Swift cast aside her country origins and released 1989, a retro-leaning pop record that launched her from Nashville standout to mainstream chart star. She's far from the first to make the crossover leap — country pop can be traced back to the "Nashville sound" of the 1950s — but she's inarguably one of the genre's greatest success stories. And in the four years since, no one has come for her crown. Now, Maren Morris, is making a good case for next-in-line with her insta-addictive Zedd team-up "The Middle," but does she have what it takes to follow Swift's meteoric rise?

A fellow Music City export, Morris has, until now, solidified herself as an auspicious country darling. Her debut studio album, 2016's Hero, notched critical acclaim, four Grammy nominations, and a top-five perch atop the Billboard 200. And while her music is overarchingly country, there are glimmers of pop potential: the soaring, shout-along chorus of "'80s Mercedes," the R&B tinge of "Just Another Thing," the name drop-laden sing-rap of "Rich." Her 2017 Niall Horan duet, "Seeing Blind," even has the same genre-fusing appeal as Swift's first crossover hit, "Love Story," a deft blend of folk acoustics and sky-high refrains.

As with 1989, "The Middle" marks a distinct shift in tone for Morris, melding trendy, synth-saturated production with a radio-destined hook. It's currently charting at No. 22 on the Billboard Hot 100, only a few slots down from the No.16 debut of "Love Story." And, like Swift, Morris is a gifted songwriter: She co-wrote every track on Hero. Pair that with her demonstrated genre fluidity, and certainly, Morris has crossover chops.

But like all great pop stars, Swift isn't just a singer, she's a brand, and her global ascension is as much indebted to her tabloid-rife love life and precision-planned image as it is sharp songwriting. She's methodical and stylized, maintaining the business-first foresight to lean into whichever narrative can best augment her career, victim or villain. She's also personal enough in her lyricism to preserve a semblance of intimacy with her fan base, but distant enough to avoid alienating any single market. Her music is all-encompassing, appealing to everyone from the red states to the liberal elite.

Morris, on the other hand, is openhearted and outspoken: She isn't coy about her politics, and has been engaged to songwriter Ryan Hurd, her partner of nearly three years, since last July. That, in and of itself, is not a bad thing — in fact, it is objectively good — but it doesn't lend itself to the kind of headline-kindling back-and-forth that's made Swifties so invested in Taylor's every move. Maren Morris is a person, real and accessible. Taylor Swift (as a pop star, not as a woman) is a cultural commodity, idolized and intangible.

That doesn't necessarily mean Morris can't chase a similar trajectory, but if she's eyeing the same sort of worldwide takeover, she will have to take a different route. In an era smartly defined as the Great Awokening by The Cut's Molly Fischer, people want different things from their icons than the do-no-wrong adoration of decades past — things like honesty and awareness and authenticity. Amid that shift, Swift's steely strategizing has begun to fall on deaf ears, and that could play to Morris' benefit: Her profanity-laced lyricism and sass-streaked bravado could easily turn her into the Chrissy Teigen of country pop.

So, if "Seeing Blind" and "The Middle" are testing the waters for a crossover, the sea feels open to a new captain. How Morris fares will just depend on which way she sails.